I wish I had songs I could give away…. unfortunately I can’t churn them out like the Beatles factory did. Some of the songs they wrote for others were pretty craptastic.. but suprisingly many of these tunes became huge hits! Then there are the songs that maybe the Beatles shouldn’t have given away. I obviously love the Mccartney tracks more, but his are definitely the stronger songs.

Funny Beatles factoid; when Paul would play World Without Love, as he sang the lyric “please lock me away”, John would always be quick to respond “ok”. Classic John.

SUPER ADDED BONUS!
Paul wanted to give this song to Frank Sinatra but ol’ Blue eyes thought that the song was a joke and reportedly said “Is this guy trying to have me?”. Frank is pretty dumb cus this song could have been a Sinatra classic.

First things first…SORRY, SORRY, SORRY! I know I have neglected this blog for a over a month. I was out on tour and the blog itself had some technical issues I had to fix. But all of these things have been resolved and we are back on track! yay!

I just wanted to post today on a few bands that you may or may not have heard of from the hey day of the mid-90’s britpop era. 97′ was the great and final year of britpop before it really died, and there were many bands that snuck in and said goodbye before you really knew who they were. While the U.S was busy with watered down versions of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam bands, the Uk was busy with watered down versions of Oasis, Blur, and Pulp.

The first of these was Rialto. They completely sound like if Oasis and Pulp were mashed together to make James Bond theme music. The next is The Supernaturals (For some reason it seems like there were a million “super” bands in the 90’s). This band in particular was written off by the british press but they really write some amazing pop tunes and had quite a few hits. Then there is Space.. you probably remember them from the Austin Powers soundtrack. And finally, the band Polara isn’t british but I feel their sound fit well enough in that genre. Surprisingly all of these groups are still around in one way or another. Just go to wikipedia to find out what they are up to. I am too lazy today for links.. haha.

Every now and then, I sometimes forget what RocknRoll is really all about. When those days happen, I quickly run to my computer and turn on the TOY DOLLS. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, I remember what the missing ingredient is…. FUN!

The TOY DOLLS represent everything a true punk band should aspire to be. Many “pure” punk rockers discard this band as simply a novelty act.. but I guarantee that you will be hard pressed to find any successful punk band not list them as an influence.

I have a great story about my 7th grade science teacher (who was 23 and smoking hot) all impressed that I listened to the Toy Dolls. I thought I was the shiznit until she said she couldn’t wait to go home and tell her BOYFRIEND! (noooo!!) At the time, she was like 6 feet tall and I was like barely 4’11”, so I don’t think our love was destined to happen.

Yes.. I am an Eagle Scout. Get your laughs out now, cus when the bomb drops, ya’ll be coming to my wigwam and eating the food that I learned how to prepare in my wilderness survival class!

Apart from being a Scout, I also worked professionally for the BSA in the Sierra Mountains. Living without parents every summer for 6 years can open a young boys eyes to many worldly vices (you’d be surprised how many scouts and counselors get drunk and smoke out on the weekends).

One of my greatest experiences from scouting was the introduction to new music I had never heard of before. Bands like CSNY, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Phish, Bare Naked Ladies, the Cure… etc. When my days off would arrive, I usually wound up spending all the money I earned on music.

Anyhoo,

The one CD I constantly played out was Cat Steven’s Greatest Hits. His songs just seemed to fit with the environment that I awoke to every day. This was music you could hike with, camp with, work, swim, eat, and dream to. My very first performance ever (I was only 13) was in front of 500 scouts by a bonfire where I sang “Moonshadow”. The standing ovation I received afterwards definitely cemented the music bug forever in me.

When I listen to his songs now I always feel young. Here are some from the greatest hits and Harold and Maude (one of the best movies evah):

I wanted to throw out some tracks from one of my favorite Brit-Pop bands, Super Furry Animals. Signed to Creation (the greatest label evah) in the early 90’s, SFA released some of the most drug-induced, psychedelic pop/punk, electro whatever records on the planet. They are a band that is constantly innovating and changing with the times, but still drawing from the past for melodic, hook driven songs.Their first release, Fuzzy Logic, has less experimentation than more recent albums, but for some reason I still believe that this one is their best (Rings Around the World being a close second). So get fuzzed and sing along.. especially on the last song (for now and ever) which sounds like a missing link to the ending of GREASE, if it were made today.

I will spare everyone by not putting the Flash Gordon theme on here. You all have heard it…. and if you haven’t, well then there is no hope for you. Instead, I wanted to privy you to some of the other tracks from this movie because they kick so much ass that no jedi or trekkie soundtrack can even come close. It was hard picking the songs I wanted to share. Queen really followed the perfect rule for films by creating musical themes with certain characters or events.

What is surprising is Queen rocks out so hard in the classic Queen style, yet the songs totally fit the futuristic feel of the movie. Listen to “Battle Theme”. Brian May’s lead guitars sound like they flew in straight from planet Mars (that rhymed..teehee!). The next up is Ming’s theme. Totally evil, totally huge, and very memorable. Then lastly I chose The Wedding March. Starts out very standard Queen with the lead guitar noodlies. Then the song turns to the dark-side just to remind you that the wedding is for the crazed universal Hitler-esque Ming the Merciless. Awesome. Enjoy :)

If I had to chop off my manhood and become any female singer for a day, I think it would have to be either Julie Andrews or Karen Carpenter. They easily have the cleanest and the purest vocals of anyone in the music biz. I have never heard any woman out-sing these two. They are the kind of singers that can lay it down in one take.. and if they have to do another take, they make the speakers go out of phase cus their vocals are pretty much perfect every time. There ain’t no computers fixing bad notes here, baby! What I also love about each of them is not only are they GREAT singers, but they are so unique that you can instantly recognize them as soon as they hit their first notes.

I decided to put on here my all-time favorite Julie Andrews song “Feed The Birds” from Marry Poppins. What I love about this tune is not only her voice, but the actual song construction itself. It starts out minor, but somehow has a light quality to it with Julie singing. When it finally reaches the chorus the whole song drops down a key and goes major! Normally a song going from minor to major would go UP a key giving it lift and becoming “happy”. This does the opposite but still retains the same effect. The other song I put on is the Carpenters “For All We Know”. Karen has a very “alto” voice and her range dips into almost male tenor from time to time. She can still sing quite high, but she never really needs to. Karen was known to be overly perfectionist about how she sounded, and that suits me just fine.